Dif Scaur, the head of New Republic Intelligence, was alone in his office when his secure comm chimed. This was a comm unit that was used for one purpose only, and he tried to control the sudden lurch of his heart as he reached for the comm with one long, pale hand.
The display brightened, and he saw the caller. The caller with flame-colored eyes.
“Yes?” Scaur said. Anticipation hummed in his nerves.
“The experiment was a success.”
Scaur took a breath. “Very well,” he said.
“I believe I can now guarantee the success of the project.”
Scaur gave a single, deliberate nod. “Then I will make the necessary arrangements.”
“We will need a larger facility. And we will also need the silence of certain individuals.”
“That has already been arranged.” Scaur hesitated. “We should meet in person.”
“Very well.” The caller seemed satisfied. “I will await your arrival.”
Transmission ceased. Scaur reached out a hand to turn off the comm unit, and when he drew it back in, he realized it was trembling.
Now everything has changed, he thought. Now I am the Slayer.
* * *
The shipyards of Mon Calamari glittered in the light of its sun, structures as graceful and strong as the ships they produced. Luke could see three cruisers partially completed, each in the MC80 class, each different in appearance from the others. Half a dozen smaller craft were also in various stages of completion. One always wished the Mon Cals would develop a sense of urgency, at least in wartime, but their desire to customize and perfect each vessel never abated, and each was lovingly crafted and beautified and refined until it became both a work of art and the deadliest force in the New Republic arsenal.
Beneath a transparent dome, Luke and Mara stood on a graceful mezzanine thrust out over the main concourse of the Fleet Command annex. Both gazed upward at the glittering silver shipyards afloat over the brilliant blue of the planet, both set off by the depthless velvet night of space and its spray of stars. The scene, the emptiness and beauty and the blue jewel of life set within it, settled around Luke like a cloak, a vision of peace and perfection. “It’s the turning point,” he said.
Mara gave him a quizzical look. “Do you know what made you say that yesterday?” she asked.
After that strange moment, when he’d been touched by something that reminded him of Jacen, he’d gone into deep meditation and a Force trance in the hope of regaining the fleeting contact, but he’d been unable to find the answers to any of his questions.
Now that he’d made contact with Jacen a second time, he had begun to suspect he knew what had spoken to him.
“It may have come from the Force itself,” he said.
Distant stars reflected in her jade-colored eyes as Mara considered this. “The Force can offer us a view of what is to come,” she said. “But usually it’s … a bit less spontaneous.”
“I’m more sure than ever that Jacen has a special destiny.” He turned to Mara and squeezed her hand.
Mara’s eyes widened. “Do you think Jacen himself knows his destiny?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t know if he would accept it if he did—he’s always questioned his purpose as a Jedi, and even the meaning of the Force. I can’t imagine him not questioning any fate that lay in store for him.” His thoughts darkened, and he looked at Mara soberly. “And a special destiny is not always something joyous, or easy to bear. My father had a special destiny, and see where it took him.”
Mara’s look turned grave. “We must help him,” she said.
“If he’ll let us. He hasn’t always been cooperative that way.”
Luke raised his head to gaze out the great dome, and to the dome of star-spangled blackness beyond, where Jacen’s coral craft, caught in the tractor beams of one of the fleet’s MC80A cruisers, was being carried to a nearby docking bay. Though the craft itself was too distant for Luke to see it, Luke thought he saw the Mon Cal cruiser, a distant wink of light swooping gracefully toward the annex.
“Hey!” called a loud voice from the concourse below. “It’s Senator Sneakaway! And Senator Scramblefree!” This was followed by booming laughter, and then. “Yes! You! I’m talking to you!”
Wordlessly Luke and Mara drifted to the mezzanine rail and looked down onto the concourse. Below, the tallest Phindian Luke had ever seen, her long arms thrusting out of the sleeves of her Defense Force uniform, lunged toward a human and a Sullustan who had just emerged from a consular ship docked at the annex. Luke recognized both the newcomers as members of the Senate.
The Phindian stepped into the path of the two Senators, then reeled. Luke realized that the Phindian was drunk; she had probably just stormed out of the officers’ club beneath the mezzanine.
The Phindian thrust out her tiny little chin. “Do you know how many friends I lost at Coruscant?” she asked. “Do you?”
The two Senators remained silent, their lips pressed closely together. They tried moving around the Phindian, but her long, long arms blocked their way.
“Ten thousand?” the Phindian boomed, extending one finger from a delicate-looking fist. “Twenty thousand? Thirty thousand comrades lost?” Two more fingers thrust out. “F-forty?” The Phindian tried to hold out a fourth finger, but then seemed a little late to realize there were only three fingers on her hand.
“We all lost friends on Coruscant,” the human Senator said grimly, and tried to push one of the Phindian’s enveloping arms out of his way. The Phindian blocked him again. Her yellow eyes tried to focus on his face.
“Too bad you didn’t think about your friends when you ran away, Senator Sneakaway!” she said. “Too bad that when you commandeered Alamania, you left your friends to die!”
Luke felt Mara’s hand on his arm. “Should we intervene?” she asked in a low voice.
“Not unless it turns violent,” Luke said. “And I don’t think it’s going to.” He glanced directly below the mezzanine rail at a group of officers who were quietly watching the confrontation from the officers’ club. “Look there.”
Mara turned her gaze to the group of officers. “They’re not intervening, either.”
“No,” Luke said significantly. “They’re not.”
“Please stand aside, Captain,” the Sullustan Senator said to the Phindian. “We have important business here on Mon Calamari.”
“Important business!” the Phindian said. “Is that anything like the important business that required you to order Green Squadron to escort you and your shuttle into hyperspace? Green Squadron, which was covering my Pride of Honor? My poor Pride, which got hammered by the Yuuzhan Vong and suffered two hundred and forty-one dead? My poor Pride, which barely made it to Mon Calamari and is going to have to be scrapped, because it simply isn’t worth the expense it would take to patch it back together? What business was so important that it was worth two hundred and forty-one lives, Senator Scramblefree?” One spindly hand prodded the Sullustan in the chest. “Eh?” the Phindian asked. “Senator Flyaway? Senator Cowardheart? Senator Curdleguts? Eh?”
“Take care, Captain,” the human Senator said. “You’re endangering your commission.”
“You’ve already taken away my ship!” the Phindian said. “You’ve already killed half my crew! You’ve already cost us the capital!” She hooted with laughter. “Do you think I care about my commission? Do you think there’s anything you could do to me that’s worse than what you’ve already done? Do you think I care about the solemn oath I swore to protect craven little bootlickers like you? Do you think any of us care?”
The Phindian waved one long arm in the direction of the officers on the threshold of the club. The two Senators turned and saw the solemn group who watched this confrontation in silence.
The Senators stared. The officers stared back. And for the first time, the Senators seemed nervous.
The Phindian still stood with her long arm extended, pointing to the officers’ club, and the human ducked beneath it and walked briskly for the exit. When the drunken Phindian swung around after the human, the Sullustan dodged around her and scuttled after his human colleague.
But even if her arms were longer than her legs, the Phindian was fast in pursuit. She caught the two and draped her arms around their shoulders as if they were old friends.
“Tell you what,” the Phindian said. “There’s nothing you can do to me, but there’s something you can do for me. There’s a fleet appropriations bill coming up in the new session—it will be in your committee, Senator Decamp—and you’re going to vote for it. Because if you don’t, we won’t be able to go on protecting cowards and thieves and politicians from the Yuuzhan Vong, will we? And besides, if you don’t give us the money—” The Senators stopped dead in their tracks as the Phindian caught their heads in her elbow joints, half strangling them. Her yellow eyes glittered. “If you don’t give us the money,” the Phindian said drunkenly, importantly, “we’ll take it. After all, we’ve got the guns, and we already know how brave you are around guns, don’t we?”
She released her two captives, and the Senators hastened for the exit. The Phindian raised her tiny chin and called after them. “One more thing, Senators! Don’t ever expect to run from the enemy on a fleet ship ever again! Because if you ever try to commandeer one more fleet vessel, we’re going to pack you into an escape pod and fire you straight at the Yuuzhan Vong. And that’s a solemn oath, and we’ve all sworn it!”
The Senators were gone. The Phindian stared after them for a moment, her long arms dangling past her knees, then wheeled and returned to her friends.
The group of officers burst into applause. There were cheers. They put their arms around the Phindian and half carried her into the club for a celebration.
Luke and Mara stood on the mezzanine in the sudden weighty silence and thought about what they had just seen.
“Natural high spirits?” Mara suggested.
“You know that’s not what it was.”
“Mutiny?”
“Not mutiny. Not yet.” Luke looked at the blank doors through which the two Senators had fled. “But it’s close. The military haven’t had anything but defeats in this war, and they know it’s not their fault. They know the leadership has been corrupt and stupid and cowardly and inept. They know that Coruscant might have fallen because of politicians like those two.” He paused as he heard a muffled cheer from the officers below. “I’d feel better,” he said, “if one of those cheering weren’t wearing the insignia of a fleet commander.”
“Me, too,” Mara said. She gave a nervous glance over her shoulder. “We’d better get a government the fleet can respect, and soon. If the military break free of the civilian government and start grabbing resources at blasterpoint, they’re no more than pirates.”
“Extremely well-armed pirates,” Luke added.
It’s the turning point, he reminded himself. And hoped it wasn’t turning the wrong way.
He glanced overhead again, out the great dome, and this time he could see Jacen’s coral craft with the naked eye, suspended by tractor beams below the great scalloped hull of the MC80A cruiser. The alien origin of the pod was clear: the coral hull and its bulbous organic form were unlike anything else in the sky. The graceful Mon Cal structures, with their fluid curves, imitated nature; but the Yuuzhan Vong pod was nature, and extragalactic nature at that.
Doors slid open behind Luke, and a file of soldiers trotted onto the mezzanine, all armed and armored for combat, their faces masked to keep out alien poisons. They were followed by a combat droid that brandished half a dozen weapons on the ends of its brazen arms.
The military was clearly taking no chances with a Yuuzhan Vong pod docking in vital New Republic space. Not only was an armed escort meeting the vessel, but the vessel was being docked not to Fleet Command, but to its annex, which could be completely sealed off from the headquarters itself and, if necessary, jettisoned into space by firing explosive bolts.
The young officer commanding the soldiers approached Luke and Mara and saluted.
“Masters Skywalker,” he said to both of them. “Admiral Sovv’s compliments, and after Jacen Solo and his companion are brought on board, he would be honored if you would all join him for refreshment.”
Poor Sien Sovv, Luke thought. As Supreme Commander of the Defense Force, he’d been held responsible for the multiple catastrophes that had befallen the military. Last Luke had heard, Sovv had been wandering Mon Calamari trying to find someone to submit his resignation to—but without a Chief of State, no one was in a position to take it.
“I would be delighted to see the admiral,” Luke answered, “provided, of course, that my nephew doesn’t require medical attention.”
“Of course, sir. Understood.”
Luke and Mara followed the soldiers to the docking port. The soldiers took positions left and right of the hatch, and the droid directly in front of it, multiple weaponry directed forward. Luke looked at Mara. She was focused inward, her eyes half closed.
“I don’t sense anything wrong,” Mara said.
“I don’t, either.”
Without a word, Luke and Mara stepped between the battle droid and the docking bay hatch. Luke felt his nape hairs prickle at the thought of all that firepower directed at his back.
“Sir—” the officer began.
Luke made a gentle gesture. “We’ll be fine, Lieutenant,” he said.
“You’ll be fine. Yes, sir.”
There was a gentle tremor as tractor beams brought the pod to the hatch, and a hiss as the lock pressurized. Then lights blinked on the inner hatch and it swung open. Jacen stood in the open hatch.
He was dressed in a kind of colorless poncho, clearly of Yuuzhan Vong origin, tied at the waist with what looked like a vine. He had lost weight, and his ropy muscles flexed plainly under pale, sickly skin that didn’t seem to hold an ounce of fat. Scars, healed but still vivid, striped his bare arms and legs.
It was Jacen’s face, however, that showed the most change. Beneath an untrimmed mane of hair and a short, equally scruffy beard was a sharp, chiseled face, any remains of baby fat burned away, with brown eyes that showed an adult, restless, penetrating intelligence.
When Jacen had left for Myrkr, he had been on the cusp of adulthood. It was clear that whatever else he may have left there, his boyhood was gone.
The relentless eyes turned toward Luke and Mara and blossomed at once with warmth and recognition. Luke felt his heart surge with joy. He and Mara each took an involuntary step forward, and Jacen sped from the hatch, and his arms swept out to embrace them both. Laughter burst from all three at the joyous reunion.
Tears stung Luke’s eyes. The turning point, he thought. Yes. From this point, we turn from sorrow toward joy.
“My boy!” The words spilled from Luke. “My boy!”
It was Mara who broke the embrace. She took a half step back, her hand gently placed on Jacen’s chest as if to touch the heart of him. “You’ve been injured.”
“Yes.” The word was simple, accepting. Whatever had happened to him, Jacen seemed at peace with it.
“Are you all right?” Mara continued. “Do you need a healer?”
“No, I’m fine. Vergere healed me.”
It was then that Mara and Luke turned to Jacen’s companion. The piebald little alien had taken a few steps into the station, and was looking at the ranks of armed soldiers with what seemed to be both skepticism and humor.
“I owe Vergere thanks of my own, it seems,” Mara said.
Vergere turned her wide, slanting eyes toward Mara. “My tears served you?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m cured, apparently.”
“Many years ago, Nom Anor poisoned you with a coomb spore. Did you know that?” Vergere’s words were precise, a little fussy.
“Yes, I know.” She hesitated. “But—healing tears? How did you—how is it done?”
Vergere’s feathery whiskers rippled in what may have been a slight smile. “It is a long story. Perhaps someday I will tell you.”
Luke faced Jacen again and found the young man grinning at him. Luke grinned back. And then an idea struck him.
“We’ve got to tell your parents you’re alive,” he said. “And your sister.”
Jacen’s grin faded slightly. “Yes. I tried to contact them through the Force. But—yes—they should have official word, as well.”
“Sir.” It was the lieutenant commanding the military detachment. “Master Skywalker, I have to take possession of the escape pod. If you’ll wait for a few minutes on the mezzanine, I’ll escort you to the communications center where you can send your message, and then on to Admiral Sovv.”
“Certainly,” Luke said. An irresistible urge to grin struck him again, and he ruffled Jacen’s hair with his hand.
With the young man between them, their arms around Jacen’s shoulders and waist, Luke and Mara walked past the battle droid to the mezzanine rail. Vergere followed in silence.
Below, travelers moved back and forth from docking ports, all too busy to look up and see the strange reunion taking place on the balcony above them.
“Welcome back,” Luke said. “Welcome back, young Jedi.”
“I’m not the only one you should welcome back,” Jacen said, with a nod toward Vergere.
Luke turned to Vergere. “Welcome, of course,” he said politely. “But I don’t know where you’re from, so I can’t be sure whether you’re back or not.”
“That is a paradox without an easy answer,” Vergere said.
Jacen laughed. “That’s true. Haven’t you guessed?” And when Luke and Mara turned to him, Jacen laughed again.
“Vergere is a Jedi. A Jedi of the Old Republic. She’s been living among the Yuuzhan Vong for more than fifty years.”
Luke stared at Vergere in astonishment.
“And you’re still alive?” Mara blurted.
Vergere looked down at herself, and patted herself as if demonstrating her own existence. “Apparently so, young Masters,” she said.
“How—” Mara began. How had she lived among the Yuuzhan Vong without having her Jedi powers unmasked by a yammosk?
“Another long story,” Vergere said, “perhaps for another time.”
“You keep your secrets, Vergere,” Luke observed.
“I didn’t survive by offering my secrets to anyone who might be interested,” Vergere said. “My secrets shall remain mine alone, unless I see a reason to set them free.” She didn’t speak defiantly, but in a matter-of-fact tone, as if describing the color of the carpet.
“We don’t want to pump you for information unnecessarily,” Luke said, “but I do hope we’ll be able to talk sooner or later.”
Vergere’s feathers ruffled a bit, then smoothed. Perhaps it was her version of a shrug. “We may speak, certainly. But please recall what I told you earlier—I am not a partisan of your New Republic.”
“What does hold your allegiance?” Luke asked.
“The Jedi Code. And what you would call the ‘Old’ Republic.”
“There is no Old Republic.” Luke tried to speak gently.
“But there is.” Her eyes lifted to his, and he felt a shimmer of Vergere’s power and conviction, like a vibration in his bones.
“As long as I draw breath,” she said, “the Old Republic lives.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Luke spoke. “Long may it live, Vergere,” he said.
Vergere bobbed her head. “I thank you, young Master.” And then she fell silent and turned to look out over the concourse, her eyes sweeping left and right, gazing at the busy people and droids moving swiftly about their business, the ships, the cargo moving back and forth.
It was a world, Luke thought, that Vergere had abandoned fifty years ago. She had lived among a people immeasurably strange, and Luke wondered how alien Vergere’s own native galaxy seemed to her now, with its many races, its bustle, and its humming, clicking, chattering machines.
Sadness sifted through Luke’s veins. He had welcomed Jacen back to his home, but no such welcome was possible for Vergere—everything she had known was gone.
The reunion did not end with the reappearance of Jacen.
When Luke and his party were brought into Admiral Sovv’s suite, Luke found that Sovv wasn’t alone. Sitting on the long curved cream-colored sofa behind their Sullustan host were two familiar figures posed like a painterly study in white, a white-uniformed Mon Calamari and a white-haired human.
“Admiral Ackbar! Winter!”
The joy of reunion with his old friends died, however, as he saw Ackbar struggle to rise from the sofa, and he had to force the smile to remain on his face.
Ackbar leaned heavily on Winter’s arm as he stood. The amphibian’s shiny pink skin had turned grayish and dull. When he spoke, his words were lisped out of a slack mouth that gasped for air.
“Master Skywalker. Friends. I regret to say that living out of water is a burden for me these days.”
“Please don’t stand, then,” Luke said.
He went to Ackbar’s side, and with Winter’s help eased the admiral again onto the sofa. “Have you been ill?” he asked the admiral, but his eyes went to Winter.
The white-haired woman looked at Luke and gave a brief nod, a quiet confirmation.
“Ill?” Ackbar said. “Not exactly. What I am is old.” He gave a sigh from his slack lips. “Perhaps Fey’lya was right when he refused to let me return to the service.”
“More likely he remembered the times you’d humiliated him in Council,” Mara said.
Winter approached Jacen and wrapped him in a long, thorough, and powerful embrace. “Welcome back, Jacen,” she said simply. Winter had looked after the Solo children through much of the early days of the New Republic, when Han and Leia had been driven by the war from one end of the galaxy to the other, and over the years she had probably spent as much time with Jacen as his mother had.
“Have you heard from Tycho?” Luke asked. While Winter’s husband, Tycho Celchu, was away with the military, Winter had returned to Ackbar’s side as his aide and companion, serving him as loyally as she’d once served Leia.
“He’s helping Wedge Antilles organize the defense of Kuat and the establishment of resistance cells. And he’s well.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Ackbar lifted his large head toward Mara. “I understand that I should offer congratulations. Did you receive my gift?”
“We did, thank you. The toy holoprojector will do wonders for Ben’s vision and coordination.”
“The child is well?”
“Ben’s fine.” A shadow crossed Mara’s face. “He’s been sent to safety for as long as we’re in danger, which may be a while.”
“The Solos did the same thing with their children,” Winter reminded them. She sent an affectionate look toward Jacen. “They turned out all right.”
“Will you all please make yourselves comfortable?” Sien Sovv said in his nasal voice. “Shall I send for refreshment?”
Luke turned to Sovv and felt mild embarrassment at having ignored the Supreme Commander of the New Republic Defense Force for so long. “I beg your pardon, Admiral,” he said. “I should—”
The Sullustan made a dismissive gesture. “Since I asked you here to meet old friends, I can hardly object if you let them take precedence over me.” His black plate eyes turned to Admiral Ackbar. “For that matter, I wish the admiral would take precedence over me during this war.”
He wasn’t alone in that wish, Luke knew. It couldn’t have been easy for Sien Sovv to be the successor to a legend like Ackbar, and Sovv’s modesty and hard work were hardly the sort of gifts to fill the void left by Ackbar’s genius and charisma. Sovv might have done better if his term had been blessed by peace, since his administrative talents were genuine and he could have kept the service running at high efficiency, but he’d been unlucky in being forced to fight the wrong war against an enemy for whom the New Republic had been completely unprepared.
Unlucky. It was the worst thing you could say about a military commander. Soldiers trusted a commander’s luck much more than they trusted a commander’s intelligence.
“I do not believe,” Sovv said gently, “that I have met all your party?”
Luke apologized again, and introduced Jacen and Vergere. Sovv complimented them both on their survival skills.
“And young Solo,” he added. “I am pleased to report that your sister is not only well, but has taken part in a major victory at Obroa-skai.”
Apparently comfortable with his ragged, half-clothed appearance, Jacen had perched on a chair near Vergere. Honest relief broke across his face at the news.
“I was worried,” he said. “I sensed she was in a—a situation.”
“An entire Yuuzhan Vong fleet was attacked by our fleet combined with a squadron of Hapans. General Farlander was quite explicit in his praise of Jaina. It appears she was responsible for much of the operational plan.”
Jacen listened to Sien Sovv with interest, then responded cautiously. “Jaina planned this offensive?” he asked.
“Not all the details, of course, but yes, the attack was her inspiration. Two Yuuzhan Vong troopships were destroyed, with tens of thousands of warriors. Our first completely successful offensive battle.”
Jacen nodded. “A good plan, then.” His lips smiled, but there was no smile in his eyes.
A light began pulsing on Sovv’s comm unit, and he put a small listener to his ear for a private message.
“Your pardon,” he said, “but I alerted Fleet Intelligence once I understood that Jacen and a—a defector were on their way. They would like to debrief the both of you.” His plate eyes turned to Jacen. “If you’re physically strong enough, of course.”
Luke couldn’t help but notice that Vergere, unlike Jacen, was not being given a choice.
“I’m willing.” Jacen rose from his chair, then turned to his avian companion. “Vergere?”
“Certainly.” The feathered Jedi wore the same wry, skeptical expression she had worn when she’d first stepped out of the air lock and seen the soldiers with weapons at the ready.
“I suppose this will go on for a while,” Jacen said to Luke. “Since I don’t know where I’ll be staying, may I have your comm code?”
Luke assured Jacen that he was welcome to stay with him and Mara, and gave Jacen his code. Then, turning to Vergere, he repeated the offer.
“Vergere may be detained a little longer than Jacen, unfortunately,” Sovv said, which only increased the cynical look in Vergere’s eye.
Vergere padded ahead of Jacen as the two made their way out. Through the briefly open door Luke caught a glimpse of Ayddar Nylykerka, the Tammarian director of Fleet Intelligence, at the head of a group of guards; and then the door closed. He turned to Sien Sovv.
“You’re taking every precaution,” he said.
“Yuuzhan Vong use of defectors and infiltrators is very effective,” the Sullustan said. “Before I free her to go where she wishes, I want to make sure that Vergere is what she claims to be.”
“I know what she claims to be,” Luke said. “I just wonder how she can be expected to prove it.”